10 Albums You Need to Hear in May

We mentioned last month that May and June were both looking pretty fine as far as album releases go — and indeed, there’s a heap of goodness to choose from as far as interesting new music to listen to this month goes, so much so that it was a struggle to get our regular list of worthy upcoming albums down to its habitual count of ten. But still, we’ve picked out ten of the best after the jump — everything from Sigur Rós to K-Holes — and also rounded up all the other releases of note over the coming month. Let us know what’s on your list!

We’ve been absolutely loving this record at Flavorwire of late — if you’ve not heard Lower Dens’ work, they’re best approximated by imagining how it might sound if Beach House stumbled into some sort of trans-dimensional wormhole and landed in 1970s Germany. There’s definitely a hint of Victoria Legrand about Jana Hunter’s deep, melancholy voice, although Lower Dens’ music is more varied than Beach House’s — tracks like “Brains” and “Stem” pulse to a motorik beat, while the delicate synth textures of “Lion In Winter (Parts 1 and 2)” recall some of Harmonia’s best work. In other words, this album is the business. Get a hold of it ASAP.